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Friday, May 16, 2014

Teacher-Led Evaluations: Do They Help Build Reflective School Culture?

I wrote last year, at this time, about our school's move to teacher-led evaluations. This year there was a committee who designed the parameters and made it "official." No more administrator watching a carefully prepared lesson, twice a year, for a high-stakes write-up. If we are to truly become a culture that values self-reflection and the habits of mind that are part of a reflective culture (goal setting, prioritizing, lifelong learning), it is time for teachers to take ownership of our strengths as well as those areas we believe are a work in progress.

Using our school's Target for Teaching and Learning as my guide, I created a slideshow of artifacts documenting my journey of growth throughout this year.

Certain artifacts fit obviously into certain domains on the target, but others were less clear. It became glaringly obvious how much learning environment overlaps with task which overlaps with role of teacher, etc.

You can't really tweak one part of your instructional process without it affecting the big picture.

I also tend to be a "half-empty" reflective practitioner (when it comes to my own practice), and I am always focused on what I need to improve. It was impossible to complete this reflective task, reviewing my entire year, without being able to recognize how much was accomplished.

What now?
My own "next steps" are rather broad strokes, like "document more and be more organized." I need to create more specific goals and figure out the appropriate structure in which to achieve those teaching goals.

But what about the next steps for the reflective process of the teacher-led evaluation?

How can this process be elevated to help all teachers become more reflective, connected and collaborative?

Is one teacher sharing his or her process only with an administrator truly transparent or growth-minded?

I am curious to know what my colleagues gleaned from going through this process. Was it more an act of self-promotion or a true and honest look at practice through the lens of the target? What about sharing? What about connecting our own goals with those of others. Who, for instance, on our faculty might help me achieve my goals?

Is this part of a growth process?
How can teacher-led evaluation lead to better teaching?